HEAR MARS

NEW MUSIC: beat tape #6: NIGHTTIME

2009-11-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

no, i'm not about to commit suicide...

this installment is a little boring compared to other beat tape posts (i know what you're thinking... his tracks can't get MORE tedious can they??), because they are written for a 2 hour documentary special on the discovery channel about DARKNESS. that's right, ambient sounds that go bump in the night. these tracks are hella easy to make though. i would get bored and put drum beats to some of them, so stick around for the second minute on the last five and maybe you'll have a epiphany.

#1: minivector

#2: descent

#3: any kind of trouble

#4: please don't go crazy

#5: copper drive

#6: synth drizzle

NEW MUSIC: girl talk EP innit

2009-11-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HEAR MARS AND GIRL TALK MADE SWEET LOVE?

anybody out there listen to girl talk? anybody out there listen to girl talk and then hey, that doesn't sound that hard? anybody out there actually try to put together a girl talk mix?

originally my (cocky) plan consisted of putting together an hour girl talk-inspired mix, then putting the product out on the blogsites under the false pretense that it was actually a girl talk mix. then of course i'd sit back and have a few well-earned snickers as the internet dissected whether or not it was actually a girl talk mix, whether it was up to par with his previous work... etc. but i eventually just said fuck it i'll post it here.

girl talk uses a ton of his own drum beats to link songs together and while putting together my mix i kind of felt like that constituted cheating - taking the easy way out when at a loss for transitions. the mix i put together is constructed COMPLETELY from other people's music. there are pros and cons to how that restriction affected the finished product.

anyways, i love girl talk and this ep (it's a little over half what night ripper and feed the animals run) is my homage to him, even if by the 18 of 19th minute the temptation to stretch mash-up sections out overcame me. that and making a mix like this is an eff-ing tedious project. i recently played this at a house party to a somewhat positive response. if i had to guess, there were too many samples flying by too quickly for people to sink their teeth into on the first listen. the last ten minutes got the most people shaking their booties, and it's not because that's the dopest part.

here are the samples i used, in chronological order, for my "What could happen if hear mars and girl talk made sweet love" mix. let me know whatchu think.

sugar ray - american pig

sublime - doin' time

thin lizzy - johnny the fox

funkadelic - you'll like it too

air - kelly watch the stars

beyonce - single ladies

mtume - juicy

lit - my own worst enemy

slick rick & doug e. fresh - lodi dodi

mystikal - danger

the notorious b.i.g. - hypnotize

jay-z - ruler's back

the notorious b.i.g. - ten crack commandments

parliament - do that stuff

clipse - mr. me too

mos def - ms. fat booty

the doors - five to one

the steve miller band - take the money and run

bjork - army of me

the beastie boys - so whatcha want

bram tchalkovy - whiskey and wine

pink floyd - comfortably numb

ll cool j - headsprung

the winstons - amen brother

oasis - champagne supernova

nelly - county grammer

amy winehouse - me & mr. jones

kanye west - get em high

missy elliott - wake up

thomas dolby - she blinded me with science

lady gaga - nothing else i can say (eh, eh) electric piano & human beat box version

christina aguilera - ain't no other man

the beatles - a day in the life

lcd soundsystem - big ideas

lykke li - i'm good, i'm gone

prince - gett off

cake - never there

john lennon - oh yoko

will smith - wild wild west

the beastie boys - brass monkey

the white stripes - walking with a ghost

daft punk - rock'n'roll

gary numan - cars

michael jackson - beat it

peter, bjorn and john - young folks

kanye west - amazing

lil jon - get low

r. kelly - same girl

trick daddy - in da wind

black eyed peas - boom boom pow

aaliyah - one in a million

outkast - bombs over baghdad

rihanna - don't stop the music

cake - dime

buena vista social club - chan chan

wreckx n effectx - rump shaker

lupe fiasco - i gotcha

wilson pickett - get me back on time

talib kweli - hot thing

daft punk - harder, better, faster, stronger

rjd2 - ghostwriter

kanye west - diamonds from sierra leone

hurricane chris - a bay bay

prince - do me, baby

daft punk - da funk

gorillaz - 19-2000

outkast - atliens

the flaming lips - the w.a.n.d.

led zeppelin - moby dick

gary numan - films

bob dylan - like a rolling stone

lil flip - game over

run d.m.c. - my adidas

the yeah yeah yeahs - maps

lil kim - how many licks?

fiona apple - criminal

the beatles - i've got a feeling

melvin bliss - synthetic substitution

dr. dre - light speed

the chemical brothers - where do i begin

wilbur "bad" bascomb - black grass

suzanne vega - tom's diner

timbaland - the way i are

lady gaga - lovegame

m.i.a. - galang

justin timberlake - my love

m.i.a. - bucky done gun

clipse - grindin

guns n roses - sweet child o mine

madonna - like a prayer

santa esmeralda - don't let me be misunderstood

white town - your woman

stevie wonder - superstition

tommy james & the shondells - mony mony

daft punk - phoenix

the rolling stones - (i can't get no) satisfaction

three 6 mafia - sippin on da syrup

burial - archangel

spoon - paper tiger

red hot chili peppers - under the bridge

chromeo - call me up (bag raiders remix)

justice - d.a.n.c.e. (alan braxe & fred falke remix)

blur - girls & boys

led zeppelin - d'yer maker

joan jett - crimson and clover

prince - gett off

the who - baba o'riley

dr. dre - forgot about dre

rick james - mary jane

usher - yeah

the honeydrippers - impeach the president

jet - are you gonna be my girl

n.w.a. - straight outta compton

gangstarr - work

justin timberlake - like i love you

a.r. rahman - o... saya

maroon 5 - makes me wonder

kanye west - love lockdown

madonna - hung up

daft punk - one more time

ginuwine - pony

NEW MUSIC: beat tape #5

2009-10-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

being that when i first began using reason i was only making hip hop, beat tape no. 5 is kind of a return to form. the word's come down from the suits that i can start sending in rap music, which is good because that's the type of stuff i enjoy sitting down and making. these are pretty good, lite silk makes good use of a vocoded sample and you know you've churned out a banger (not hard to guess which one) when your first response upon playing it back is to recite the in da club lyrics over it at full volume early on a sunday morning. i'm pretty sure my new neighbors hate me.

no feedback at all after submitting beat tape 4. like the streets, i'm just tryin ta stay positive.

#1: flocks of flukes

#2: lite silk

#3: frosted lakes

#4: clubpsychosis

NEW MUSIC: beat tape #4

2009-10-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

beat tape #3 was/is an unfinished collection of tracks involving beatles samples. also, update on the previous post, it looks like heavy metal sun tan and facehugger have made it through the first round of elimination and were chosen by the editor of a discovery channel show described to me as "friday night lights, only it's dirt car racing" for possible inclusion. which will give me something to brag about when i bump into kanye on the street.

these were written specially as candidates for the same show. don't ask why half of the tracks could be called sad bastard music, or why a dirt car racing show would feature them. because i don't know.

#1: princess on lsd

#2: sandrifft

#3: thrasher shark (ed note: best title yet?)

#4: what if this happened to you?

NEW MUSIC: beat tape #2

2009-09-17T10:02:00.001-07:00

"less dance, less 80's cheese style." that would be beat tape #1 review up in a fortune cookie.

"good hard/raplike/driving tunes." that would be the request of the music man, who is looking for background muzak for a "catch it, keep it"-like show. i only wish i knew what catch it, keep it is.

#1: heavy metal sun tan

#2: rocky horror house

#3: down the rabbit hole

#4: facehugger [ed note: alien reference]

NEW MUSIC: beat tape #1

2009-08-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

so my brosin (brother by theory, cousin by blood) jonathan just got back from japan, where all the hot beatsmiths go to test their battle skills. well, he did recently go to japan, but that has nothing to do with his friending me on facebook and letting me know if a) 2limb is still functioning (answer: no, but i do still bump that cd from time to time, even if i have to skip the masturbation skit because it really creeps me out) and b) that i should send him the dopeness via mp3 and he could make me a rockstar. i'm still going through ascap application hell, but i sent him beat tape #1, which is sorta like givin somebody a bump of snow and then whispering in their ear that you've got a couple keys in the other room. this is a weird post.

#1: crest/trough

#2: the tide changer

#3: look what i did with echoes

#4: warblebird

#5: synsisighz (pronounced syntha-size) her

NEW MUSIC: electrixxx side a mix [1:12:43]

2009-07-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

I owe you all an apology for the empty void in your lives over the past month or so. And one day you will get that apology.

This is long (duh), so I've broken the post up into a couple different categories, based on the level of interest you might have in this project. Read the options below and then scroll down accordingly:

The best and always preferred way to listen to this mix is on a long car drive (to hear it all the way through without interruption), WITH THE VOLUME UP.

I'll wait for you to get back.

[...]

However, if you really don't give a shit, press play now:

Now,

Scroll to Option A if:

You saw a link to this on Facebook, wondered what the hell Cory Allyn (who you haven't seen or heard from since 5th grade) is up to, and have no particular interest in the particulars themselves.

Scroll to Option B if:

You often click on Cory's links when he posts them online, find the music vaguely interesting, but find him or herself wishing on a regular basis that someone would tell Cory he's just not good enough to compete with the big leagues and he should not quit his day job.

Scroll to Option C if:

It sounds pretty cool, you like supporting a friend, and you'll put up with about a paragraph of his fanatical bullshit before returning to checking everyone's status.

Scroll to Option D if:

Your jaw drops to the floor upon hearing the first 30 seconds. How in God's name did he do that??? races through your mind. I want to know (basically) every detail and nuance that went into the production of this!!!! That and you have a rough understanding of audio applications.

Now on to the options:

OPTION A:

I took a bunch of songs I liked, put them into an audio program, and then rearranged them and layered them on top of each other to form one big long track. Enjoy, the ending's pretty cool.

OPTION B:

You may very well be right, but go to hell. Enjoy, the ending's pretty cool.

OPTION C:

The main mix, listed below, was actually a CD that I made for Elise a while back, when I was trying to introduce her to dance music. I tried to pick songs that were really straddling the line between pop and house, because I know she wasn't going to get excited about 10 minute long songs (that I enjoy by the way) that take 6 minutes to go anywhere. It turned into one of her favorite mixes (I've probably made her nearly two dozen), and I didn't change any of the sequencing when I started this project. It turned out really cool, and there are a lot of fun little details that you might not notice the first time, so I would hope this mix is a grower for those with enough patience. The inspiration for this mix pretty much comes from Daft Punk's Alive 2007 CD, both in style and execution.

OPTION D:

All of these songs were imported into Ableton, where I then quantized them. In simpler terms, I lined them up to Ableton's idea of a musical bar. Once the songs were locked into that template (and some of them took up to 45 minutes to do, especially the acapellas because there isn't a steady beat behind them to match up to), Ableton allows you to alter the audio file to any tempo and still have it be on beat. What that really means is that I could take two songs that are different original speeds, change them both to the same tempo, and they would still line up perfectly on top of each other.

Ableton also automatically regulates the pitch of every track that is quantized, no matter the tempo, so unlike a turntable, where if you make the record go slower the pitch gets lower, I could slow or speed up the tempo of a song and it would still be in the same pitch. Of course you can manually adjust the pitch of any audio as well, which I did most noticeably with "Green Light" to make it in key with other audio I was mixing under it.

All the above stuff was the really time-consuming part. After that, it was really just a matter of copy and pasting bars of music in different places, trying to retain the best parts of each song while still making a cohesive piece of music. The little pieces of flair on the end involved the Beat Repeat effect in Ableton, which created most of the stuttering noises you'll hear.

Here is the playlist as it was originally created for Elise:

MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)

MSTRKRFT - Easy Love

Uffie - Pop the Glock

The Eternals - Wrath of Zeus (Original Mix)

Cut Copy - Hearts on Fire

Prince - Erotic City

Lo-Fi-Fnk - Want U

Hot Chip - And I Was a Boy From School

John Legend - Green Light (feat. Andre 3000) (Diplo's Dade County 1988 Mix)

Kanye West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Club Mix)

Ratatat - Shempi

Digitalism - Zdarlight

Justin Timberlake - Lovestoned (Justice Remix)

Adele - Cold Shoulder (Basement Jaxx Classic Remix Edit)

Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT Remix)

The following are, in chronological order, additional songs that were added to the mix. Most were drum breaks layered on top of main songs, a few were acappellas and one or two were used fairly extensively in mixing. (*) Any song with an asterisk next to it is from the French music label Crydamoure, which has an exhaustingly awesome collection of artists and tracks, almost all of which have been released exclusively as 12" singles.

Hot Chip - Over and Over

Kanye West - Stronger (A-Trak Remix)

Disco Italiano - Chella'lla

(*) DJ Sneak - Intergalactik Disko

(*) The Eternals - Wrath of Zeus (Zeusappella)

The Incredible Bongo Band - Apache

Audio Two - Top Billin'

Melvin Bliss - Substitution

Lil Wayne - A Milli

(*) Le Knight Club - Santa Claus

(*) Le Knight Club - Gator

(*) Crydajam - If You Give Me The Love I Want

Parris Mitchell - Ghetto Shout Out!! (feat. Wax Master)

Kanye West - Love Lockdown

Major Lazer - Hold the Line (feat. Mr. Lexxx & Santigold)

(*) Le Knight Club - Holiday on Ice

Daft Punk - Revolution 909

(*) Sedat - Feel Inside

Daft Punk - Oh Yeah

(*) Archigram - Carnaval

Alan Braxe - Vertigo

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

A-Trak - Call That Girl Margherita (from his mix Dirty South Dance, I don't know what song he's mixing)

MSTRKRFT - Bounce (feat. NORE) (A-Trak Remix)

The Encore

The last part of my mix might sound familiar to some people because its a complete reconstruction of Daft Punk's Alive 2007 encore. The only version you can get your hands on is (obviously) a live version from their tour. This version is not live, which is not some sort of studio wizardry where I was able to lower the audience noise in the background, but I have in fact found each of the different samples the French duo used and recreated the encore, and at least for the first half I did it pretty faithfully (and might I say impressively).

While it might scream blasphemy (and that would be my reaction coming across something like this), I decided that about halfway through the mix, after the peak climax of the Together bass dropping, I could one up those French fuckers. And I think I have. I would hope anyone who had the good fortune to attend one of these shows two years ago would agree with me that if the encore had played out the way I've constructed it, it would have been absolute mayhem.

These are the pieces encompassing the last 11 minutes:

Daft Punk - Human After All ('Guy-Man After All' Justice Remix)

Archigram - Carnaval

Daft Punk - Revolution 909

Daft Punk - The Prime Time of Your Life (Para One Remix)

Disco Italiano - Chella'lla

Together - Together

Sedat - Feel Inside

Daft Punk - One More Time

? - ?????

Here is the encore as a separate track, in case anyone is just interested in hearing that.

And here is the original Daft Punk track, live from the first show on their Alive 2007 tour in Bercy, France:

Finally, here is a compressed folder containing all the original tracks. Different people will have different levels of involvement with my mix; in some cases people might not know any of the original songs before listening to my mix. In that case, it would be understandably hard to differentiate between the original work and what I've done to it. To be fair, that could make for an equally enjoyable (albeit different) listening experience, but in the end listening to the songs in their original form really highlights the amount of effort (this mix took me about three weeks to complete, and at times I was working on it for four or five hours each day) that I put into this damn thing.

Over and above all, just have fun with it. It's music and it's meant to be enjoyed, so do so. Oh and please comment; it's the very least you could do.

TO DOWNLOAD ANY OF THE SONGS YOU'RE STREAMING, JUST CLICK ON THE CORRESPONDING "DIVSHARE" ICON AND IT WILL TAKE YOU TO THE CORRECT PAGE.

so long michael, see you tomorrow

2009-06-25T18:25:00.001-07:00

michael jackson is dead. it's sad that in a lot of ways i wasn't entirely surprised to hear the news; it was shocking, but after that ten seconds when it all sank in i was left thinking about what michael's legacy was to this generation. mtv, in a confounding state of sensibility and honor not seen since... well when they started playing mj, is doing a bunch of interviews, and they're trying to bring in viewers that really only know jackson as this media freak who used to have a few catchy songs.

i think jackson is like the beatles: one of those musical acts that will never really see someone come in after them and do it quite as well or rather quite as orginally. it took me years before i truly appreciated michael's music, and a lot of friends of mine still don't appreciate it. maybe they will now. isn't that how it works with dead musicians?

i don't think the london shows were going to turn out that well, and i think the new material he had been working on with will.i.am and akon among other people wouldn't even have been a glimmer in the face of the body of work he had produced in the late 70s and 80s. nothing against him, but again i think the media will be quick to speculate what would have happened if today hadn't happened.

i'm not sure much will change for me from here on out. thriller and off the wall were in my car this morning, and they'll be there when i wake up tomorrow.

no music posts today. how could you pick just one? or ten?

blech not even moved in yet

2009-06-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

so for those who are linked biographically with me in other ways besides this blog, you know that i am in the process of moving. so we're in the new house, we got cable internet. WHAT THE FUCK MAN, i'm sure you're saying. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MAJOR LAZER SHOW???? i know, i would want to know too. but until tomorrow, when hopefully i will have the energy to conquer the massive post-show review that will include video and pictures as well as you know my general vibes, you'll have settle for the radically new design of my blog. okay, so my boy will just hooked me up with a new logo. but its siiiiiiiiiiick, right???

first and second impressions, pre-show

2009-06-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

yeah i know what the hell do i have to say about a dancehall album? i was trying to think of a proper analogy, and the best i could come up with would be like a literary snob trying to make sense of 8 mile (inside joke for someone who doesn't read this blog).

it would be hard to not compare the major lazer album to mia's kala, since both diplo and switch (who comprise major lazer) had such a big hand in that. or maybe it would be more fair to compare it to santogold's debut, which featured similar contributions that probably turned out much more similar sonically.

there are the songs that just sort of sound like pretty generic dancehall to me, and then there's the outer space productions. for me, the vocals here are fairly interchangeable; the guest list is varied but since i can't tell what the hell they're saying half the time (more of a comic exaggeration pointing out my skin color than actual fact, although it is worth pointing out that diplo and switch and both just as white as i am, and i'm pretty sure neither of them grew up in jamaica).

i can't imagine much of this stuff is common to the genre: there's the surf-guitar riff in lead-off hold the line, the uhhh... nursery rhyme wtf of mary jane, the otherwise boring auto-tuned pop of keep it goin louder that somehow manages to redeem itself with a simple drum beat and the last ten seconds of eurotrance synths. and that's ultimately what sets the record apart. the autotuned baby crying that everyone was talking about surfaces as a minute long skit that touches on messages of peace and respecting maternal figures. i shuddered when i heard lil jon's voice, only to breath a sigh of relief when he left three seconds later.

so there's definitely some highlights that are going to make for a crazy show. pon de floor is the album highlight, and i'll let you know how mental the crowd goes when they drop that shit, but i'm sure someone will post the footage on youtube anyways.

when you hear the bassline feat. ms thing

pon de floor feat. vybz kartel (what the fuck is that sound oh hell who cares)

MIXXES: afterparty

2009-06-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

1. prince - controversy (single edit) (1981)

2. zoot woman - taken it all (le knight club remix) (2004)

3. allure - champagne (???? this year?)

4. yeah yeah yeahs - heads will roll (2009)

5. phoenix - lisztomania (2009)

6. matt & kim - daylight (2009)

7. mr. hudson - supernova (feat. kanYe) (2009)

8. grizzly bear - two weeks (2009)

9. daft punk - harder better faster stronger (breakers break remix) (2001)

10. passion pit - sleepyhead (2009)

11. lady gaga - eh, eh (electric piano & human beat box version) (2009)

12. lykke li - little bit (2008)

13. the-dream - hater (2009)

14. little boots - new in town (2009)

15. black eyed peas - alive (2009)

16. the streets - when you wasn't famous (2006)

17. peaches - lose you (2009)

18. grizzly bear - two weeks (fred falke extended mix) (2009)

19. john lennon - oh yoko! (1971)

really light on the oldies this time around huh? blech, playing this in my car is fine but posting it online is really highlighting 2009 blog surfing

a little bit of gold and a pager

2009-06-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

i know i know i've been slackin on the blog tip. shit's been real with parties, concerts comin up and, you know, moving two towns over.

this really hits close to home, not on the music side of things, but because i'm in the elongated process of sending back pants that are just way too tight.

more major, more lazer

2009-06-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

surprisingly, i don't go to concerts that often, but apparently i have pretty good taste when i do make up my mind. the last one was a little shindig in grant park, chi-town, a couple summers ago where i saw these two robots in leather motorcycle suits on top of a pyramid that was pretty cool. about a month ago i decided my next venture out into the big world would be major lazer. surprise surprise, when i opened up the summer fiction issue of the new yorker (robot on the cover, strange coincidence) to find the mag's pop-music critic fancied himself a little piece of the action at s.o.b.'s. well too bad sasha frere-jones, whoever you are. if i see you at the show i'm gonna punch you in the gut.

New Yorker Blurb Validating My Impeccable Tastes in Music

just a little taste on what you guys are missing out on. yes that's a baby crying, run through a muthafuckin auto-tune. major lazer album, would you leak already?!?!?!?!?!?!

the beatles revolution 1, take 20

2009-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

in high school, and maybe as a freshman in college, i would always tell people the white album was my favorite album of all time. how disappointed i now find myself today realizing that it could have been this much better.

now i know, this has been around since february. i did know about it back then, although for whatever reason i did not listen to it. now i wish i had, but i suppose it doesn't really matter.

of course i am referring to the "lost" 20th take of revolution 1. for all you beatle nubes, there are three released versions of revolution, the first real political song from the fab four. the first was released as the b-side to the hey jude single, and is considered the precursor to the heavy metal genre, although i think the kink's "you really got me" is also a serious contender. the second and third versions were released on the fourth side of the album's self-titled double album, released in 1969. revolution 1 is a campfire acoustic version of revolution. revolution 9 is a mind-fuck of audio bytes and studio processing, the first real sampled piece of music.

while revo 9 is cool and everything, it really just sucks to listen to. it has zero replay value, and i think i've only listened to the entire thing all the way through once or twice. that's where this uncovered take 20 comes in, bridging the gap between revolution 1 and 9. it's got a hey jude extenda coda vibe, some freudian mama and papas but above all else you can listen to it and enjoy its avant gardiness, which is more than i can say about revo 9.

here's the link to youtube video, i really don't want emi knocking on my door after i post the mp3 and embedding is disabled.

i feel like k-fed, no wait maybe nick cannon

2009-06-01T11:08:00.001-07:00

so my girlfriend blew up before i did. yep, she's the bees knees to burt's bees. they're probably going to end up supplying her with a couple year's worth of chapstick, which is bad news for the leeching underachieving boyfriend. i mean, couldn't she have posted her flickr with a bunch of images of bagel bites? or jazzmutant lemurs? let's hope she doesn't get any smart ideas and dump my dumb ass.

The Streets - When You Wasn't Famous

here's elise's post(kinda posted above), and here's where burt's bees used it for free promotional usage (click on footage)

ol dee lyne/paparahzzzzeee

2009-05-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

as the album gets closer and closer to leaking on the internet (hey i have to get familiar by june 13), mad decent dropped the drop the line video, feat. rearranged audio that is presumably how the song will sound on the album. i dunno.... santi's verse was tacked on the end, there's no "hold the line" chorus vocal and the instrumental's stretched out a bit. personally i liked the dj edit better.

also, this is just so dope. lady gaga... oh man. to quote an ok coen bros movie, "you fascinate me."

trillah

2009-05-28T19:10:00.001-07:00

some guy put together a venn diagram (oh hell its one of those visual writing tools you have to use in second grade) of michael jackson, famous musicians you may or may not associate with the king of pop on a regular basis, and the mj songs they sampled from him. it's a cool list, i've been thinking all day about other examples and could only come with two he missed.

Outsidaz - Macosa (feat. Eminem) (diggin in the crates for that one)

interpolating Wanna Be Startin Somethin from Thriller

(my digital copy is mp4 format which isn't supported but you know what it sounds like)

Louis La Roche - Love (i had for a long time attributed this song to Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk Dude) because of a mean trick some internet thug played on cyberspace last valentine's day)

samples It's The Falling In Love from Off The Wall

i reached back like a pimp and i smacked the ho

2009-05-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

[SCENE: sitting around a campfire. at dusk. someone (no names but its me) plays an ugly rendition of a famous beatles song on a martin (!) guitar that is not his]

"blackbird singing in the dead of night...."

"homie scored a key he's gonna fly...."

"wait what song is that?"

"oh god... its.... damn who is it by?"

"i think it starts with an s. swimmy, swammy, supersonic?"

"no i don't think."

"hear let me look it up on my iphone."

[a minute passes]

"dynamite hack!"

"i was way off."

"i'm gonna download it."

[three minutes later]

"yeah that wasn't as good as i remembered it."

campfire shit:

Dynamite Hack - Boyz-N-The Hood

o.g. shit:

Eazy-E - Boyz-In-The Hood

omg the f-ing craziest thing happened to me

2009-05-26T08:26:00.001-07:00

man, whut a fuckin memorial day weakend my boy has dis private jet so we all chillin in flight, on r way 2 da florida keys we got the music box bumpin you know what it is but all a sudden da stewardess comes up (she look just like 1 of those coco girlz) screamin n shit and then a pilot gets on da speakers causing mass hysteria 2, sayin we gonna die, we got no engine, i'm like whut?? we like 53,000 feet in da muthafuckin air i ain't no going down over sum gator infested swamp with no fuckin mosquito. i look over at my boy and he's mad spaced out, and i'm like yo do sumthin and he looks at me sez like man yo eyes are mad red u been smokin 2 much and that's when it hit me i wuz just reel high n it was all just a mirage so i ordered 1 of doze tropicall drinks wit da lil umbrella in em n we had a holiday on ice u know we had 2 take it to the streets! it wuz such a great time shout outz 2 my doggs archigram, buffalo bunch, knight club and play paul 4 being so dope i even shed a tear or 2 n when i got home i crydamoure.

humix after all: part two

2009-05-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

this is a part two. scroll down to the previous post or click here to update your brain matter, cuz one day it may matter.

so i've given remix after all the old college try about cinco o seis times, and combined with the fact that i'm like pavlov's dog when it comes to the punk of daft i think i can fill everybody with my two sense. of course my opinion is liable to change in the future, so i guess these are really first impressions. i've divided the tracks up into categories, like so:

the mehhhh........

Human After All (The Disco Villains Remix)

too much distortion layered on compression layered on top of distortion layered on.... etc. it sounded like they took the original track, chained it to the back of their pick up truck and went off-roading through a briar patch. not in a good way. i would start the whole 'i'm so sick of every remix sounding like justice' schtick, but it was used later in mixes i liked. cute little 'disco villains' drop at the 4:00 mark though.

On/Off (The Noizy Kidz Daft Zapping Remix)

of course this is the obvious hard track to do because all you have to work with is 19 seconds of someone flipping through channels; you've pretty much have to create something from scratch. i wish the noizy kidz would have thought about what on/off means to the original album, because this mix doesn't fit in with the idea of the project, and it just ends up sounding like rehashes of other daft punk remixes (diplo's work it and soulwax's oh yeah come to mind). incorporating various dp samples is a good idea (even if i wish robot rock weren't one of them), but maybe they could have broken them up as if the listeners were scrolling through radio stations or something relevant to the album.

the okay:

Robot Rock (Immuzikation Remix)

pretty straightforward remix. sounds like 90% of the other ones that have been done. cutting up the vocal sample underneath the main power chords was a good idea, as was whatever that 80s sample was before the 2:00 mark. i wish someone would do a mix that wasn't an offering to the gods of distorted guitars.

Make Love (Chew Fu & Substantial Small Room Sax Fix)

everytime i listen to this it just reminds me of a mixtape track some rapper would put out. i warmed up to substantial's voice a little bit after listening to it a couple times, but i feel like his vocals are way too far up in the mix; it's very disconnecting. and while somebody might say oh he's got a nice flow, have you listened to how generic his lyrics are?? i do really love the saxophone addition, but what's with that weird blowing sound it sounds like whoever was playing the instrument was using a reed that had just been put through a coffee grinder haha.

Television Rules The Nation (Dirty Disco Youth Remix)

i'm digging this one. the jangling drums work really well here, and i think it was a good choice to seque the motorcyle revving synths into that ubiquitious monster riff. fairly basic mix, but effective.

the better:

Technologic (Kids At The Bar Remix)

the first thing i said when i heard the opening was 'crank that!' haha but this got pretty good. i felt like the synth sounds they were using were fairly run of the mill, but they did a good job with them.

Emotion (Werewolf by Night Remix)

okay, ya think dude was obsessing over ryan leslie when he made this???? please listen to valentine and then listen to the beginning of emotion. then everyone that hates on ryan leslie but digs this song can read my blog post about what a great producer ryan leslie is and they can thank me for putting them on to him haha. the vocals were really low in this mix, anybody else think? i liked this one alot though, almost made the last category.

the cream of the crop:

The Prime Time Of Your Life (Tits & Clits Remix)

what a great name. it must be something about prime time, because that para one remix off the japan bonus disc was straight fire, and so is this one. i think having this right next to the disco villains mix shows that you can bite major elements of justice's remix style (slappa da bass mon), but one sounds like crap and one sounds really dope. the two faux fadeouts were killer duuuuude.

Steam Machine (The Company Kang Remix)

this one is fantastic, mostly because that keyboard line, but also because i think the song utilizes and expands upon the original's fortes, a point i made in my previous posts, turning the song into a slow burning dancefloor anthem. that chord progression is siiick.

The Brainwasher (Melee Beats Remix)

it's funny, because steam machine and brainwasher were probably my least favorite tracks off human after all. i've never heard of company kang and melee beats before, but i've got to tip my hat off to them, because they've constructed great dancefloor material. the great thing about brainwasher is how the producer flips the guitar riff in the original into a funky little piano lick.

those are my thoughts. as far as nitpicking goes, there are a couple of times where the transition between songs is abrubtly jarring; adding another beat of silence here and there would have worked together towards making a more cohesive listening of the album.

i have to say though, this is such a cool idea. i hope no one reading this takes my critique as a diss towards the project. rather, it's a compliment (not to mention i'm a little envious that i know i'm not yet good enough to be a part of the remixing) that i'm enamored enough with the idea to really give it my full attention, something i hope the rest of the internet does. it'd be cool if this got substantial attention, i haven't seen it (yet) on any of the major sites. i read something about somebody suggesting tackling discovery next, but i'm not sure i'd be so keen about that. you do too much of a cool thing and it just becomes generic and expected. plus the quality of the remixes is going to decrease as the demand for more albums increases. human after all is such a perfect album for a project like this; discovery most definitely is not. take your time and really think about another album that would be worthy/benefit from this kind of treatment.

click here to download Remix After All

click here to visit The Lemur Blog, where you can get more info on the project and links to the other blog sites

also, for anyone noticing, the remix cd is almost exactly a minute longer than the original. eerie coincidence?

humix after all: part one

2009-05-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

i'm ashamed to say i was a little late on this really fucking cool project that's been slowly molding into blogosphere fruition. thank god i figured everything out last night, because it came out a couple of hours ago. any later in updating you and it would have been mortifying.

so a couple (10) blogs out there got together and decided, being the great middlemen they are, to produce (in the traditional sense) a recreation of daft's punk third opus, human after all, which to many people fell a teeny bit short of expectations, and the accompanying remix disc, which many people felt plummeted to its death.

granted, they set the bar pretty high with the one-two punch of homework and discovery, especially since they just went and coverted a bunch of top 40 listeners with one more time. they then, as one review put it, "hit the self-destruct button," releasing nine new songs and one channel-surfing interlude that were minimal to the point of demo-quality, and sounded like disco samples filtered through the garbage disposal in your kitchen sink.

while that last sentence might incline you to believe i'm not a huge fan of the album, don't be mistaken. of course i, probably like most every other daft punk fan out there, wrestled with an inner tantrum for a while, feeling like i was somehow the butt of a very inside joke. but over time i eventually accepted the album for what it is, and came to enjoy (maybe the right word is appreciate) it very much, despite the fact that it is NOT the lot of things that everyone wanted it to be.

what the alive 2007 tour illustrated was how strong the album's ideas were. mashed-up against cresendolls and sped up a bit, television rules the nation is pure stadium status. throw the rollin & scratchin drums under prime time of your life, and watch out cuz your face might melt off. steam machine literally drips sweat globules down your face when around the world is filtered up underneath it.

but it took a little while for a lot of us to understand those dynamics, and the remix disc daft punk included with the japan release of the album didn't help. there were a few solid tracks, like erol arlkan's take on the brainwasher and parts of the digitalism (ironically the ones that didn't feature any part of the original song) remix were really dope. and daft punk themselves were so pleased with para one's reimagining of prime time that they incorporated it into the encore for their tour. but only the latter really utilized the strengths of the original recording, and with an album as (dare i say) misunderstood as human after all, you would hope that a remix album would leave the listener wanting to go back and give the original album another spin. also, someone really should have been shot for including that peaches track.

anyways, now that i'm done ranting, back to my original point, which is that 10 blogs out there each chose a track off human after all, and then contracted the track out to (presumably) one of the production acts that the blog has had a big hand in breaking. the result is remix after all, and i was originally going to throw in my two cents on the results, but i've already written quite a bit and have therefore decided to turn this post into a two-parter. if you simply can't wait until tomorrow, google will surely point you in the right direction and you can make up your own mind.

some highlights from the original remix album:

Daft Punk - The Prime Time of Your Life (Para One Remix)

Daft Punk - The Brainwasher (Erol Arlkan's Horrorhouse Dub)

Daft Punk - Technologic (Digitalism's Highway to Paris Remix)

let's go lambert let's go

2009-05-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

that's right, i've been following american idol. not religiously, but i've seen a bunch of the performance nights, probably because tuesday night is my only night off and we don't have cable. but since tonight was the penultimate show for the eighth season, i thought i would weigh in, because to my surprise i think adam's going to win.

this is not the opinion i've held for the last couple weeks, watching the far tamer and sympathetic and john mayer-ish contestants and thinking to myself, how would a pimple-scarred 27 year old with slightly androgynous tendencies and an unnerving at-the-camera serial killer grin possibly have a chance at such a popularity contest?

yet logic be damned, he's still in it, and i think he's gonna do it. kris allen is cool i guess, if you were (are) the kind of kid whose heart skips a beat when your dorm-mate grabs his martin for singalong acoustic renderings of top 40 ditties (heartless? come on, don't you remember that gin n juice cover that everybody thought was phish but really wasn't and was just fuckin stupid to begin with?).

i'm not going to speculate on the social and cultural implications of america electing someone like lambert over someone like allen, but here's to adam, who i think we'll all be seeing a lot more of, regardless of whether that douche bag that sings out of the side of his mouth wins tomorrow.

lambert's picked some good ones; here are two (sorry, i would have posted cher but to my embarrassment/disappointment i don't actually have it):

Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love

The Rolling Stones - I Can't Get No Satisfaction

UPDATE: it seems the times, with infinitely more time on their hands (not to mention a paycheck for the fruit of their labor) has read my post and expanded upon it. thanks for the shoutout new york. below is a little snippet that i sort of subconsciously understood watching the show but never really put my finger on it until reading this:

The family concept, in which we visit the contestants’ hometowns, is a major marketing tool that touches every aspect of “American Idol.” This year the addition of a fourth judge, Kara DioGuardi, added a surrogate older sister in a panel whose idiosyncrasies are as familiar to today’s television audience as those of Archie Bunker’s 1970s television family.

Mr. Cowell is the cranky, opinionated paterfamilias and teller of hard truths who usually gets the last word, and Paula Abdul the neurotic, dithering mother with the crocodile smile, who is fiercely protective of her brood. Randy Jackson, the good-hearted uncle, is the family’s unofficial peacemaker, and Ryan Seacrest, the host, its fiercely ambitious oldest son, a golden boy engaged in an Oedipal battle with dad. Clive Davis, the chief creative officer of Sony BMG Records who supervises many of the recordings of “American Idol” finalists, is the benign great uncle and senior accountant who drops by occasionally to dispense statistics about chart positions and sales figures.

rather be summertime than doin time

2009-05-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

this is a preemptive post, because it sure doesn't feel like summertime right now.

Sublime - Doin' Time (Bradley's Version)

Sublime - Doin' Time (Remixed by Marshall Arts feat. The Pharcyde)

for the record, i have never 'sipped a zima', but am up for the challenge

"alright you little sexpot"

2009-05-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

that's what elise just told as i was grooving to the tunes i've picked for tonight's post; it must mean i'm on to something good.

sorry about the last couple posts skimping on the text and such. the gf suggested to me a week or so ago that i should do a post with my top ten songs of all time. i'm not sure if i'm ready to make a commitment like that (narrowing my favorites down is just such a daunting task!) but a "top ten of ____ greats" sounds like it would be something right up my alley.

so, without further ado, here are TEN SONGS WITH SOME HELLA HARD DRUMMIN, homie.

(in no particular order)

Led Zeppelin - When the Levees Break

not even the beastie boys really did this break justice when they opened their first album, licensed to ill (originally to be titled 'don't be a faggot', i kid you not) with it. the great blues sliding riff is killer as well. these are some hella hard drums, homie.

Joe Cocker - Woman to Woman

i think josh homme of queens of the stone age was talking about this song being hella hard in some interview a couple years ago, and he mentioned that the drums here are pretty much the basis for dr. dre's drum programming career lately. i think dre borrowed a little more than the drums, but for the life of me i can't realize which song he sampled it for... hmm...

The Cool Kids - What Up Man

i can't believe that this hadn't been done already (to my knowledge). old school hip hop drumming is always referred to as "boom bap", but it took a long time for someone to take that phrase quite literally. boom. clap. bass.

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows

Ringo Starr always get a bum rep for being a shitty drummer that got really lucky. i always took that for gospel until i started really listening to the fab four. this doesn't exemplify anything techincally proficient or anything, but the song that launched the psychedelic phase of 'the greatest band there probably ever will be' probably wouldn't be half as great without ringo's little stutter number.

Air - Remember

this song hit me in the face when i first listened to moon safari, probably because the drumming alone turns the vocodorama into something completely different than any other song on their otherwise chill pill of a debut. wait for my eyes to roll when kid cudi or drake (or kanye for that matter) realizes this as well and snatches it for some mixtape. hella hard and smooth like silk at the same time.

Daft Punk - Rollin' & Scratchin'

i can't say enough good things about this track. when i first bought homework (we're talking back in high school) i couldn't stand this song. its just some annoying high pitched squeal that goes on for like eight minutes. it took a long time to realize it's absolute genius. without rollin and scratchin, there would be no justice, or electro-bangers or anything. i'd put this up against slayer for degrees of metal brutality any day of the week. the premise is incredibly simple, yet at the same time so perfectly executed. sure, the pitch-altered metallic synth growls and shrieks its way into climax heaven, but its the drums that turn the party level from 3 to an 11, and all that enters at that one point is a goddamn hi-hat. dp do fantastic things with this song live (obviously), but probably the best version i've found is off alive 1997 (it's a 45 minute single file, too long to post here), where they throw in some bass drum rolls to add a little swing to this beast's stomp. how can something so abrasive be so fucking danceable at the same time?

Schoolly-D - PSK

they say schooly-d invented gangsta rap. i guess psk stands for parkside killers, which sounds like a crew i wouldn't want to run into doing my jazzercise routines down the sidewalk late at night (sometimes there's no other time in my busy schedule). that doesn't impress me, but what does is the little bird who told me dude recorded this whole song in one take. that's vocals and beats, while operating the drum machine manually at the same time as kickin his little raps. oh yeah, and biggie does a great tribute to this on life after death's disc one.

The Honey Drippers - Impeach The President

i hadta include a classic break break in this list somewhere, and this is none more hella hard than impeach the president. it's the claussen pickle of old soul breaks: cold, crisp and delicious. and if you know me, you know claussen's the only brand i'll stand for.

Spoon - Paper Tiger

again, sometimes its not the level of difficulty or studio tomfoolery that makes or breaks a hella hard drum, but just a great idea done perfectly. the idea here is to waste nothing. every element has its role and adds something completely different to the mix: the reverb bass drum, the stuttering/phasedthephuckout tom tom, the steady rim shot. whoda thunk a couple dudes from austin even knew what hella hard meant?

Blur - Song 2

i had to include this one, mostly for personal reasons. growing up in the school band playing the lame ass (or so i thought at the time) trumpet, i was nearly salivating with envy at the drum section (who, for the most part, only played their stupid snares or bass, which made them even lamer than me). but this one kid would always sneak onto the little kit in the music room when our teacher wasn't looking, and he would always hammer out the opening drum pattern to song 2, which if you remember was like the end all be all for sixth graders in the mid to late 90s. and yeah, it still does kick groovy.

and before anyone mentions it (all because of that goddamn movie trailer), the drums at the end of 'in the air tonight' are too hard to include in this list, since they would undoubtedly put everyone else to shame. i think there should be some sort of musical drug testing committee, because phil had to have injected his snare drums with steroids or something. it's just not humanly possible otherwise.

would the real elton john please stand up?

2009-05-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

this has got to be the greatest elton john song the rocket man never wrote. and to think i wrote david bowie off a long time ago for (apparently) no good reason.

David Bowie - Life on Mars?

oh yeah and labyrinth is a great movie.

put ya stunna shades on...

2009-05-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

i don't remember where i first heard this remix, but i have to post it because a) its a good remix by definition in that it, while admittedly becoming repetitive after the first minute, completely reimagines the song's attitude and b) i worry that the mp3 will drop off the internet and into selfish hard drive obscurity.

not so great album, but not so bad album either. one of the better things lil jon has been involved with over his career.

E-40 - Tell Me When To Go (feat. Keak Da Sneak) (prod. by Lil' Jon)

E-40 - Tell Me When To Go (feat. Keak Da Sneak (Trackademicks Remix)

Bonus:

E-40 - Yay Area (prod. Rick Rock)

this guy.... i've got a good feeling about this guy

2009-05-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

i've got a pretty good radar for movies. ask elise, i'm always reminding her as we walk out of a good movie that i called it after seeing the trailer.

so i'm calling it about mr. hudson (that guy a lot of people thought was kid cudi on paranoid, which i hope gets a dope music video treatment)'s new album, straight no chaser. and before you think i'm just hopping on whatever new artist kanye is promoting these days, i have serious reservations about exactly how classic kid cudi's album will be, and i have no interest in glc, big sean or consequence.

granted i haven't heard anything but the lead single that kanye leaked today, and its very 808s. but i've read a couple of chris martin-comparing posts....

what i hope straight no chaser sounds like:

Mr. Hudson - Supernova (feat. Kanye West)

what i hope straight no chaser does not sound like:

Kanye West - Homecoming (feat. Chris Martin)

Jay-Z - Beach Chair (feat. Chris Martin)

all i see is... beatles beatles beatles

2009-05-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

like was promised. these tres arrived in the mail yesterday. not those colors of course. but that would have been cool too.

made three beats today that i'm pretty happy with, despite the gorgeous weather outside. all three are beatles samples, which means at the end of the day that i'd never be able to clear them for actual usage. who the fuck cares though, this is the internet, have some fun people. not sure in what form i'm going to use them yet (wouldn't a beat tape that only used fab four samples be dope???), so i thought i would post the originals (the first i had made two weeks ago or so). lazily, all the samples come from the very beginnings of the song. by my definition, a classic sample is one that you can't just listen to the first couple of seconds of each song by an artist to get.

The Beatles - Lovely Rita (off Sgt. Pepper's)

The Beatles - Octopus's Garden (off Abbey Road)

The Beatles - I've Just Seen A Face (off Help!)

The Beatles - Maggie Mae (off Let It Be)

until the tracks show up in some form or another, you'll just have to use your imagination. and before you can say it, i know i know danger mouse already did this, kind of. whatevs, it's all good.

NEW MUSIC: third (and final) love lockdown remix

2009-05-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

spent most of my day off today mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, catching up on lost... etc etc i.e. i didn't allocate much time for tune-age. and of that special time with my midi keyboard: nothing going. thought i had a cool prince sample that i was working on over the last few sessions, but i realize now it's just bleh, and no matter how much you twiddle and fiddle with bleh, it's never going to be great. hey, you can't win every time.

so i had this track sitting around for about two months, and was having trouble sequencing it. that and the more you surf around the net, the more justice-esque "electro-banger" remixes you find, and i was having second thoughts about adding one more pig to the pile. the truth is, it's hard to find something these days that doesn't all sound like a desperate recreation of some track off †. (to be honest though, human after all did it first, which everyone hated until the alive 2006/7 tours)

so embrace the cliche. it is what it is: short, sweet, filter heavy. just because you reach for that candy bar that you know you shouldn't eat because your stomach is already sick from sugar overload doesn't make that snickers taste any less delicious.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Typical Electro-Banger Remix)

this track fulfills my "trilogy" obligation, meaning i can join the ranks of peter jackson, george lucas, (soon-to-be) jay-z, meatloaf and the man with no name. james lipton, i will be expecting your phone call.

hear mars and ?uestlove: bff, apparently

2009-05-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

just checking out a couple twitter posts... britney... the rock... ?uestlove of the roots.. oh wait... sounds like he just listened to eminem's new album, that i posted on last night...

i'm right there with ya, ahmir.

Eminem - Deja Vu (prod. Dr. Dre) (i hope the irony is not lost on you)

candy & fruit

2009-05-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

couple albums i had been curious without holding my breath about leaked recently, and to my surprise i was pleasantly surprised with some of the results.

Eminem - My Mom (prod. Dr. Dre)

Eminem - Underground (prod. Dr. Dre)

dr. dre's production is probably the saving grace for 'relapse'. that and slim shady's morbidly black sense of humor that pervades most of the album. you'd think that his shtick, which hasn't changed since the slim shady lp, would have gotten tired by now. well it did, shortly after the eminem show. but dammit i'm a little embarassed to admit that this album, while small potatoes compared to the marshall mathers lp, was really fun to listen to.

Peaches - More

Peaches - Billionaire (prod. Simian Mobile Disco)

peaches is a pretty cool broad for somebody who occasionally dresses up as the bearded lady and refuses to shave her pubic hair. i don't know if you could call 'i feel cream' a feminist rallying cry, but i'm sure someone, somewhere, is considering writing her women's studies thesis on it. again, smart move by the woman who became a household name with the infamous opening line "suckin on my titties..." years and years ago to get some help on the production side of things. electroclash at its finest.

side note: word on the street is zshare is spotty, if at all functional, for a number of blog followers. it's always worked fine for me, but hey, the customer is always right. even if they're getting the product for free. so i'm using a new server, which is better because it can let you just play the mp3 right off the blogsite. if you wanna download it, just click 'divshare.' it's that easy.

drum-rush the show

2009-05-07T18:58:00.001-07:00

i kinda suck at drum programming.

the problem is that i don't drum. the drums are the odd man out when it comes to music. if you can play guitar, you can learn to write for any other instrument. it's all just simple conversion: strings to keys, keys to strings, strings to brass or wind or reed. it's still just a melody.

but drums, wtf, i don't get it. this is not the case of the white man not understanding the boogie. i can program basic rhythms, and sometimes i get lucky by accident, but i don't anything but mimic.

of course, it's not like you need complicated drum patterns to be successful. in fact, with a few exceptions, the majority of popular music relies on the boom-boom-pow.

i don't know enough about electronic music to philosophize about the 4 on the floor drum beat. but i know enough about hip hop drums, and i've boiled it down to five general schools of thought, represented in name by the producer (imo) most associated with that approach.

a dr. dre drum:

hard-hitting, crisp and clean sound. incredibly basic pattern. almost non existent. rarely adds something new to the production, opting instead to just emphasize what's already there.

Busta Rhymes - Get You Some (feat. Q-Tip & Marsha of Floetry)

a dj premier drum:

always sampling a classic breakbeat of some type, and always invoking the golden age of that boom-bap.

The Notorious B.I.G. - Unbelievable (drums sample The Honey Dripper - Impeach the President)

a timbaland drum:

influenced by world music, somtimes indian. usually has some type of unusual (to hip hop) percussive instrument playing and some screeching or squawking vocal sample.

Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On

a danger mouse drum:

more complicated patterns (i'm not saying garth couldn't play them, i'm saying soulja boy can't). the project probably has some sort of backpacker, underground stamp on it.

Jay-Z - My 1st Song (The Grey Album remix)

a j. dilla beat:

free-flowing, non-quantized; jumpy in layman's terms. a lot of dilla beats (and he's kinda in a class by himself, even though a lot of people say they're influenced by him) are right on the verge of sounding off beat. that's because he's ill on the mpc like that.

D'Angelo - One Mo'gin

i think i'm pretty much always doing preemo beats. let's see if i can branch out a little. anybody got any others? who am i missing?

i'm like gnarls barkley, meets charles barkley... ummm...

2009-05-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

i can't remember which came first, me realizing that i liked song no. 2 off gnarls barkley's second album, the odd couple, or seeing this video and then realizing that i loved song no. 2 off gnarls barkley's second album, the odd couple. a little surprised that chris milk of kanye's good-clean-wholesome-fun-but-not-award-worthy 'touch the sky' vid directed this; i wonder how much input cee-lo and danger mouse had into the process. anyways, just a fantastic video, i promise it gets really good a couple minutes in.

in case you can't wait that long, one of the guys from 'nsync is supposed to be in the beginning of this video. i can't tell which one with all the weird costumes and accents, but a special prize awaits the first person to comment with the correct answer (sorry elise, you aren't eligible).

THE VAULT: futuresex/lovesounds review

2009-05-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

this was a piece originally written for buzzsaw, the student magazine at ithaca. they didn't like it/get it/whatever their problem was, and suggested that i turn it into a parody making fun of jt, because apparently they're weren't secure enough in their own sexuality to ever admit... etc. etc.

it got published in some fuckin magazine instead. no, that's the actual name. i know, clever. but shortlived.

it's not all rainbows and sunshine (or funny for that matter), but i still think its a great idea and i thought rather than trying to make it better i would just share it with you all as is. although i couldn't help the occasional comment in hindsight. and by hindsight i don't mean doggystyle.

there's no reason to write a straightforward review of this album. we know how good it is. we know that tracks 1-10 form some of the best, most cohesive music in the last couple of years (to that effect, we're also pretty embarassed by tracks 11 & 12). [actually over time i have come to respect track 12, despite being convinced that it would better serve its purpose as a b-side. track 11 still deserves to burned though] timbaland and danjahands, who handle 90% of the production here, are geniuses. [sometimes. see chris cornell's album] justin finally gives the middle finger to everyone who didn't realize he was the only genuine talent to come out of 'nsync. enough said.

but it's a bold statement to call your album 'futuresex/lovesounds'. when i think of all the music i'd want to make babies with, justin timberlake isn't high up on that list. but the more i thought about it, and the more i walked around campus with this album blaring out of my ipod, the more i wanted to call him out. 'justin,' i would say as if we were sitting in the towers dining hall talking over reheated chicken patties, [ithaca college joke you wouldn't understand] 'your album's bangin, but i'm not gonna bang to it.' or am i?

the following are notes i took while in the field doing the dirty and researching this timeless question:

1.futuresex/lovesoundsi didn’t realize how awkward it would be to propose this experiment. with the exception of one subject, i didn’t tell them what i was putting on beforehand. 'wait…' one confused participant said, taking my hands off her breasts. “what the fuck, did you just put on justin timberlake?” there were mixed reactions. one girl told me to “turn that shit off if you want me to stay.” two others actually got more excited. but whatever the initial reaction was, when the first chorus kicks in with those ridiculous chord stabs, all experiments were back on schedule. 5/5

2. sexyback (feat. timbaland)

this one was a problem, especially since it appears so early in the album.iI blame it on mtv. your mom knows this song. god damn it it’s overplayed. with the first subject, i was too drunk to realize that mouthing “i’m bringin’ sexy back” [i still do this at inappropriate times] along with justin was probably the worst thing i could have done. she started laughing so hard we had to stop so she could regain composure, and i had to take my hands out of her pants. the bass drum on every downbeat had things twerkin’ though. 3/5

3. sexy ladies/let me talk to you prelude

this shit is funky. however suspicious the last track might have made them, this one more than compensated. it’s impossible to listen to the breakdown and not want to start doing pelvic thrusts. i don’t care where you are. the cowbells in the prelude were a little distracting. But that’s just nitpicking. 4.5/5

4. my love (feat. t.i.)

bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. i was afraid that the sappy subject matter would be a problem, but I was so wrong. SO wrong. try tellin’ me that beat isn’t an absolute monster and i’ll straight up slap your ass. [is this a threat to guys as well???? i don't think i gave much thought to that sentence...] i promise. 5/5

5. lovestoned/i think she knows interlude

oh shit. another out-the-park home run. one girl dug her nails in my ass when the guitar kicked in. [if you can't tell by this point, none of this actually happened to me] i still have marks. the problem again was the interlude. it really kicked ass at sucking. the first time i was unprepared, but the second time we stopped and made-out, which while sounding rather anti-climactic, fit pretty perfectly. boo-ya. 4/5

6. what goes around.../...comes around

not good. it’s a break-up song. a slow, sad, break-up song. that lasts seven and a half fucking minutes. i learned my mistake the first time and took this song out of the line-up for the rest of the experiment. but [HEAR MARS], that defeats the whole purpose of the experiment! hey, fuck you man I’m trying to have sex here. 1/5

7. chop me up (feat. timbaland & three 6 mafia)

that’s much better. there’s so much bounce here; the possibilities are infinite. this song also has the album’s best sex moment at 3:02. [so true, 2006 me. so true] three 6 mafia’s verse kicks in and timbaland throws in piano stabs that couldn’t help but make the girls want to go faster. and faster. and faster. “oh hell yes.” that’s a direct quote. 4/5

8. damn girl (feat. will.i.am)

will.i.am has way too much annoying repetition in his song structure (see busta’s “i love my bitch” and “my humps”). thank god that doesn’t make an ounce of difference in the bedroom. damn. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn. gimme some. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn girl. damn. (this is the actual chorus) the drums and the keys were right on target. so were the girls. 4/5

9. summer love/set the mood prelude

the perfect beat to cream your jeans to. [more indicative of the sexual behavior i was more likely to be participating in at the time] there’s something very suspicious about the consistency of timbaland and danjahands’ production on this album. TOO suspicious. this was the perfect note to end on though. listen to the prelude with your eyes closed and you can practically smell the post-coitus cigarette. not to say that there was one. (i may or may not be on probation [i was]) but you could still imagine it. 5/5

'[HEAR MARS], I have to say I was very surprised,' one girl said to me while we lay in bed, letting track 10 (the ballad that should have closed the album) play out in the background.

being the modest man i am i caught myself turning a little red. 'oh you mean the performance? well, it’s really not something that can be taught. You have to have more of an instinct for…'

'i was talking about the justin timberlake album. i actually liked it. a lot.'

'yeah,' I said after a moment’s pause, putting my arms behind my head and deciding not to push for dessert. 'yeah, I did too.'

wes anderson is the new black

2009-05-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

quentin tarantino must be soo pissed at wes anderson. here was QT, king of the soundtrack, dictator of the jukebox, god of all that are album cuts and resurrector of obscure little ditties to the hipster culture palette. he was unchallenged in his craft, until some little nerd(ier) weasel made friends with that guy from devo and started shitting all over quentin's legacy. who does this guy think he is??

well wes anderson, soundtrack machine, you have converted me. quentin's cool, but i have low expectations for inglorious basterds (and its accompanying music). truth be told, while i dig jackie brown, i'm a pop muthafucka and QT just isn't geeky enough to satisfy my needs anymore.

that's what she said.

five movies, five songs. here comes the money shot:

Bottle Rocket: Love - Alone Again Or (okay, starting off with a slight exception since this is love's most well-known song)

Rushmore: John Lennon - Oh Yoko!

The Royal Tenenbaums: Van Morrison - Everyone

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: David Bowie - Queen Bitch

The Darjeeling Limited: The Kinks - Strangers

cool wiki trivia fact i found while hitting the books:

in royal tenenbaums, there is this fantastic scene with luke wilson and gwyneth paltrow in luke's tent that he's set up in his living room. during that scene, luke puts on the rolling stone's album between the buttons, and the songs "she smiled sweetly" and "ruby tuesday" play consecutively. i always thought that was so dope because it made it seem like they were actually just letting the album play out, like would happen in real life (i guess in the olden days now). however, as wiki pointed out, those two songs have never appeared consecutively on any stones release. wes, you sly fox you!

oh yeah, also everyone and queen bitch remind me of a fantastic point: wes anderson is the undisputed champion of slo-mo!!!!!!

NEW MUSIC: starrrrrchild

2009-05-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

i'm duper pumped about this one. i decided it's too good for me to throw anybody else's vocals over it. EPPIIIIICCCCCC!!!!!!!! or, as kanye would say, stadium status.

here are a list of people i would consider producing this song for, in no particular order, and not intentionally misogynist:

1. weezy f. baby

2. drake/kid cudi (is there really that much of a difference?)

3. cee-lo

4. bob dylan

5. the streets

big leagues, here i come.

Hear Mars - Starrrrrchild

the sample (great song btw, shout out to my dad who finally figured out i inherited his good taste in music):

Electric Light Orchestra - Ticket to the Moon

MIXXXES: SHORTS.

2009-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

(mixxxes is an ongoing mixtape series i started when i realized elise needed better music in her life. with some exceptions, there is rarely a theme per say - i just try to mix the relatively unknown with the seriously-overplayed popular, the brand new with the oldie but goodies, and try to create a magical listening experience you probably wouldn't find someone else burning on a cd-r)

1. sebastien tellier - divine

2. prince - raspberry beret

3. lady gaga - paper gangsta

4. gang starr - above the clouds (feat. inspectah deck)

5. major lazer - hold the line (dj edit feat. mr. lexxx & santigold)

6. the killers - when you were young

7. passion pit - little secret

8. basement jaxx - raindrops

9. common - inhale

10. the notorious b.i.g. - hypnotize (hear mars pregnant robots remix)

11. ryan leslie - gibberish

12. ween - freedom of '76

13. vampire weekend - cape cod kwassa kwassa

14. drake - best i ever had

15. rick ross - maybach music 2 (feat. t-pain, lil wayne and kanye west)

16. justin timberlake - (and she said) take me now

17. slum village - tainted (feat. dwele)

18. electric light orchestra - don't bring me down

19. mgmt - time to pretend

sorry, no individual uploads. you're gonna have to download the whole thing.

Hear Mars - SHORTS.

saturday's soundbites to take up space

2009-05-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

another month, another air yeezy colorway passes me by. i have a feeling the black and pink were the end all be all. too bad i have a JOB, so i can't afford to take off three days to sit on a street corner and have guys trying to pull all sorts of funny business in the line.

jake frumkin, is that you in front???

***

it's been like a month since there was anything new and worthwhile to download. music or videos. the economy's even affecting the piraters... where's the loot?

***

i hate to say it, but every time i watch the amazing video i hate it a little less. and speaking of videos everyone hates, i'm kind of digging the asher roth/cee-lo video, even if the song's just meh.

***

just in case you've forgotten, trent reznor is pop. like in a sunshine in your tummy good kind of way. don't just take my word on it.

i'm not too good at car metaphors

2009-05-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

dear ryan leslie,

i want to love your debut. i really do. i've lost count of how many times your album's been played, in its entirety, in my car, in the hopes that after that magical number has been reached, something will click. i imagine that moment to be a little like a car engine finally turning over, after your wrist is near numb from fatigue.

but there's also that other moment, when you realize you're going to need to save at least enough energy to be able to stick out your thumb and hitch-hike to work, because this piece ain't goin anywhere, no matter how many times you give it a lil gas, just for old times sake.

ryan, you're a great producer, but this whole vocal thing i just can't dig. it could be your cliche lyrics. it could be the occasional tepid rapping. it could be that you're just not that good of a singer, and you don't really know how to compensate for it. it could be that i just can't stand fabolous anymore, and grind my teeth to point of cracking them when i hear his voice.

this would be a great album r-les, nearing fantastic, if you just let someone else sing over it. way to go pal, you really know how to hook up a hellafreshsmoothasssilkybeat. and you have good melodic instincts. but you need to know to quit while you're ahead. before you pick the pen, pick up your phone. call up kanye, his blog hearts you. call up rick ross, the second half of his latest could have used some of your proper summer synths. call up the goddamn teriyaki boyz for all i care. anyone but you. and f-a-b-o. and chris cornell.

i hope we can still be friends. after all, real recognize real. and yeah, i'll probably still keep listening to your album anyways. that's what kind of a guy i am.

your friend, constructively,

hear mars

p.s. gibberish is pretty dope the way it is, even if, as elise correctly noted, the horn melody steals a page straight from spottieottiedopaliscious. i even enjoyed the video of you making it.

wait til i get my music right...

2009-04-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

i have 25,568 songs on my itunes.

wish i could brag. but as fred reminded me a couple of months ago, i can't. if i had to estimate, i'd say about a quarter of those i've never heard. out of every four songs, there's one i've never even clicked on.

while it might seem like its pointless to have songs on your computer just for the sake of having them, in the end i'd rather know half, or even a quater of my library really well than have listened to all of them and not be able to quote or recognize the melody of the majority of them.

which brings me to tonight's post: music that i've spent enough time sleeping on. here are five artists (and fantastic songs of theirs that i DO know - i'm not COMPLETELY square) that i never got around to getting into, and hearby resolve to wax (more) poetically on in the month or so.

Electric Light Orchestra - Four Little Diamonds

Prince - I Would Die 4 U

Basement Jaxx - Rendez-Vu

De La Soul - Rock Co.Kane Flow (feat. MF Doom)

Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man

this blog just got mad decent

2009-04-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

who's going to the major lazer show at sob's on june 13? god i wish i knew because i would go up to them and look them in the face and tell them how incredibly cool and hip they were and how jealous i was of them.

you know i'm posting pix of the tix when they show up in the mail

six degrees of hear mars

2009-04-28T16:43:00.001-07:00

everybody knows the 'six degrees of kevin bacon' game, but i bet no one reading this blog is nerdy enough to have wiki-ed it. it's really fascinating stuff: the highest finite Bacon Number (the number of degrees of separation between bacon and an actor or actress) is 8, and only 12% of actors or actress, dead or alive, cannot be linked to him at all.

big deal kevin bacon. inspired by a recent email from a devoted follower of this hear blog (which among other things pointed out that the ending of the vid i made for under the bridge was cliche) i am declaring myself more 'in the know' than bacon-n-bits.

examples?

my friend jelly's mom almost went on a date with tom petty when she was 13.

tom petty's Hear Mars Number: 3

i went to high school with the son of Foreigner's bassist

degrees separating me from being cold as ice: 3

my english amigo becs' friend is cousins with 'one of those guys from daft punk'

one of those guy's from daft punk (please let it be thomas!)'s HMN: 3

i went ice skating on the same rink as kevin bacon when i was in elementary school

bacon, the ball's in your court you smug bastard

additional note: went to five guys burgers and fries today. every other fast food chain in the universe, your move.

like a dee ba day

2009-04-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

sorry guys i accidentally posted the wrong video yesterday. here's the real under the bridge remix. i don't know who that douche bag on the left is though.

NEW VIDEO - UNDER THE BRIDGE x GRATIS

2009-04-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

yeeeeeeeeeaaahhh booooiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!

also, viewing this at fullscreen has been known to cause severe headaches and nausea.

let's see how long this vid lasts before youboob gives it the kibosh

first real day of summer muzak

2009-04-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

i think tom petty's the shit, and that's an opinion i've held for quite some time.

my dad turned me on to the heartbreakers when i was very young, and at this point i listen to them very seldom, but when i do i am always reminded why they are so fantastic.

it's great pop music, simple and plain. i'm not always the biggest fan of greatest hits collections, because when looking for samples the odds are you're usually going to find that special five second clip in an obscure album cut. but tom petty and the heartbreaker's greatest hits collection is just a fabulous collection of pop songs that just hit the nail square on the head, track after track.

sure, there are a lot of petty songs i like that didn't make the final cut, some of which i'll link to below, but after queuing the album up on my itunes for a family picnic today, i was once again reminded of what quality pop music sounds like. it wasn't so overwhelming that it took control of the afternoon's atmosphere, and it wasn't jack johnson to the point of needing to break out a spliff (i will concede that i do enjoy brushfire fairytales every once in a blue moon as well however).

sometimes the music you find yourself listening to just makes a moment, and you find yourself thinking that no matter how hard you tried, you wouldn't be able to create a better soundtrack. this afternoon/evening was one of those nights. thanks tom.

Tom Petty - Yer So Bad probably my favorite tom petty song, from his best album, full moon fever

Tom Petty - It's Good to Be King can i compare this to kanye's amazing? if you really listen to both of them, it's pretty easy to see this single from wildflowers is cut in the same vein

Tom Petty - Big Weekend - this is new new petty, and while the album it comes on is kind of a drab affair, this is just a swell number

kind of funny coincidence, i realized after i picked these three songs that there are only three solo tom petty albums, and i managed to pick songs from each of them. and if i had to pick a fourth, it would be 'you don't know how it feels', which to my surprise is also from wildflowers. heartbreakers, beef does not live in this house.

amazing is not that amazing

2009-04-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

here's a first in the hearmars world: i am thoroughly unimpressed with kanye's new video.

although conveniently i can't find the link because pitchfork is covering its ass, the far-cry-from-having-the-pretentious-stick-shoved-up-its-ass website called the song itself something like dull and uninspired when it first leaked. now we don't even get shortsightedness. that's not going to stop me from dusting off the soap box though.

at least when kanye was ripping off ralph bashki he was doing it in style. here kanye rips off every nature documentary ever, and manages to present himself so dully throughout the entirety of the video that there's really no reason for him to be in it. in fact, why don't i just pop in my planet earth dvd, turn the sound down, roll up a doobie and play 808s on some dark side of the moon/wizard of oz? (i would wager that the coincidental cuts matching with the music would be a hell of a lot more interesting too)

saying that kanye is the only hip hop artist that would ever do something like this is a point declared moot ages ago when he stopped being hip hop. the only thing this says to me is that hype williams has never seen a jungle before (or the discovery channel for that matter), because when he points his camera at it all he can muster up the ability to do is drool. mr. west, even though you're pretending to be, i know you can't possibly be this humbled by mother nature.

i hope ye gives paranoid a better treatment than this because if not you're going to see me get really saucy.

SOME MUSIC IS BETTER WITH iTUNES: nas - stillmatic

2009-04-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

when stillmatic came out it was immediately hailed as a classic. the source give it five mics. if i could sum up my reaction to hearing ether for the first time, i guess i'd say it was like gripping a firecracker in my hand and lighting the wick.

i'll admit, it was pretty easy to love this album when it dropped. his fan base was frothing at the teet for anything that sounded remotely like illmatic. since (not so) arguably the greatest hip hop album there ever was and probably ever will be, nasty nas just got lazier and lazier. nasir may never acknowledge it, but jay-z was right:

four albums in ten years nigga? i can divide

that's one every let's say two, two of them shits was due

one was ehh, the other was illmatic

that's a one hot album every ten year average

so when stillmatic dropped it was hot more often than not, hence the preemptive classic rating. but if nas is one thing, he's a terrible editor. he came in the game with the brilliant idea of a 10 track hip hop album that didn't waste a single second, and then proceeded to jabba the hut the rest of the records he's ever put out.

there are some albums that just need a good sifting through. this is one of them, and here's how it should have been done.

1. stillmatic intro

2. got ur self a gun

3. 2nd childhood

4. ether

5. you're da man - oh god it's so good

6. the flyest

7. rewind

8. rule

9. what goes around

10. one mic

discard 'smokin' because i feel asleep a minute into it, throw out 'my country', it being one of the worst nas songs i've ever heard (and that's saying a lot - browse through street's disciple, his double disc) until i heard 'braveheart party', which was probably left off subsequent pressings of the album because its so goddamn embarrassing, and dismiss 'every ghetto', but do it nicely because you can't always be a complete asshole

it was a hard decision choosing between 'destroy and rebuild' and 'rule'. 'rule' is a commercial sore-thumb, a weak rehash of 'imagine' from it was written. 'destroy and rebuild' is a second diss track that only takes away from the mortal kombat of ether, and come on nobody cares about prodigy, cormega or nature anyways.

i rearranged the tracklist because one mic is just such a dope closer, the dj premier track, 2nd childhood should have come earlier, and i didn't really like hearing ether right off the bat.

stillmatic with old tracklisting: 6/10

stillmatic with new tracklisting: 9/10

any version of stillmatic vs. blueprint: sorry, nasty, jay's all over you like butter on mashed potatoes. hot mashed potatoes.

damn my life on rural mars!

2009-04-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

i don't usually post more than once per day, or post recycled news that just about every blog on the planet is writing about, but this is breaking news, people.

thomas bangalter, considered at near-deity status here on the red planet, half of masked duo daft punk, oh just showed up at ex-manager busy p's birthday party to spin three songs behind the wheels of steel. no big deal. actually, i'm squealing like a little girl that just met the backstreet boys over here.

oh yeah and he's wearing a fresh nike sleeveless (when was the last time i called a sleeveless tee fresh?????) and what looks a lot a lot like the sunglasses i recently purchased, which have mysteriously gone missing..... he played some songs i've never heard of, something called rollin' and scratchin' (ahhh like my like FAV dp track), signature (!!!!!!!!!!!!) and a prince ditty, raspberry beret (!!.... well okay its not the prince song i'm most aquainted with but it certainly has wtf factor... how did he possibly mix signature into that?).

and of course the videos documenting this have been removed at the assumed request of busy p. before i had a chance to watch them. thomas, if you're reading this, i want my shades back.

don't be a hahater

2009-04-22T11:41:00.001-07:00

it is soooo cool to hate lady gaga right now.

which i really don't understand. i would have bet gaga was that rare pop star that would appeal to both the charts and the critics. she's got the weirdo-fashionista female pop star to win over the of montreal fans; her music takes a page right out of hypem's top 50; she writes no. 1 hits in ten minutes; she thumbs her nose at american idol by performing half of her biggest hit in faux barroom cabaret style. for any other artist these would have been positives, but somehow lady gaga gets criticized at every turn.

maybe it's the package. the fame. the materialism. the trl-ity. at first glance her album seems full of the shtick hipsters love to hate. but you can't ignore the irony that the entire album is dripping in - being disgusted by gaga and her music is like not getting the fishstick joke. don't you think she's a little bit smarter than that?

anyways, in this week's new yorker sasha frere-jones had written on an article on gaga. well, sorta, as elise pointed out. there's an opening non sequitur on the mysteries of pop music, and then her songs are compared to britney and eiffel 65. hmm... well maybe that's the point. frere-jones is trying to lure in skeptics by using established hipster-approved bands to qualify lady gaga's talent. you like gary numan's cars right? well look 'just dance' is just like that. GOTCHA! you ironically enjoy madonna, right? ha, just snuck 'eh, eh' under your nose. PWNED! if a = b and b = c, then doesn't a = c? (transitive property, i know pretty heavy)

not to labor the point anymore then i already have, but isn't this a little like when justin timberlake dropped 'like i love you' and everybody thought i was a fag for realizing it was dope?

in ten years lady gaga will be the shit. and i'll be sitting in my ivory tower, probably listening to something else.

NEW MUSIC - Under The Bridge Remix

2009-04-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

boo ya!!!!!!

10 days and out since the hypno mix. right before i checked i was thinking two weeks, which i was annoyed about, but i can live with 10 days. especially when i cooked up something as spicy as this.

i'm about to send this to gratis, the guy i filmed tagging two weekends ago. if he gives the go-ahead (aka if it isn't too spaced out and wtf for him) i'll start editing the video down with this track as the audio.

EQing this shit took forever. i don't even want to talk about it. but hear (ha!) it is, hot off the presses. if you put your nose close enough to your speakers, you might even still smell the ink. i think this one'll probably be my most popular one yet, i'm about to do the facebook rounds and see what i can conjure up for total downloads. seacrest out!

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge (Hear Mars Chinese Finger Trap Remix)

i've got this really hard to reach itch on my back...

2009-04-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

it really doesn't get any more fantastic than this. if there was ever a fool-proof case for the artistic use of someone else's music, you're looking at it. or listening to it.

the sample is nestled in george benson's jazz number the world is a ghetto. the audio clip bangalter (the half of daft punk with a better grasp of english) cuts up can't be more than two seconds long, tops.

which makes the entire song an exercise in creativity. based on the two seconds of music he has to work with, i've counted 10 distinct melodies and countless minor variations and fills. not to mention the fact that one melody can sound completely different depending on the drum pattern on top of it.

sampling guitar licks is really hard for me. they all end up sounding really flat and generically twangy, and i'm not sure i've ever put something together that had a guitar in it (and wasn't a lazy sunday 12 second straight loop) that was anything less than cringe-worthy.

spinal scratch is really nerd heaven. square's paradise. a little nugget of ambrosia for those socially inept enough to actually listen to the whole song counting each melody change.

on the sixth day thomas bangalter created spinal scratch. and on the seventh he rested.

Thomas Bangalter - Spinal Scratch

George Benson - The World Is a Ghetto

elise couldn't stop laughing at this

2009-04-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

this is the frumpiest animal i have ever seen.

too many youtube posts. that's what all my followers WOULD say to me, if i had more of them and any of them chose to comment on my posts. so, i decree that from this moment on, all youtube posts are put on hold.

The Brothers Johnson - Stomp

this is the opening track from the quincy jones (the dr. dre of the michael jackson era, although qj did all of his work with the bjs (ha!) before off the wall hit) prod. album light up the night. i recently have been playing this album to death, along with right on time because they both fit on one burned cd for two reasons:

you make me wanna wiggle is liberally sampled in justice's i-can't-get-this-radio-station-to-tune-in-clearly track newjack

strawberry letter 23 is used in jackie brown, which is tarantino's best movie!

why didn't i pick either of those songs to post? good question.

this really brings back memories of staying home from school and watching this and just about shitting my pants in terror. not to say that it still doesn't conjure up those same feelings.

everybody bleeds, eventually

2009-04-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

it's a beautiful day outside i know. but only because i stepped outside briefly on my way home from work. my tunes are consuming me; if i could spend every waking second in front of ableton and reason i probably would.

which brings me to this ny times article (that's right i'm one of THOSE people), and a proposition along the same lines:

i would be willing to let the newspaper pay me only $25,000 to take a year off. for much less than half of what the lawyer's getting, i would to do zero pro bono work for the community, unless providing them with dope ass beats counts.

speaking of dope ass beats....

oh yeah and i started work on the graffiti track today and it's a DOPE ASS BEAT!

"word to el muerto cucaracha exoskeleton"

2009-04-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

so over at hiphopdx.com they have a pretty genius interview with daniel dumile aka viktor vaughn aka zev love x aka king geedorah (gotta love a good godzilla reference) aka metal fingers aka supervillian aka MF DOOM, now known simply as DOOM. i'm not the hugest doom fan, but dude's pretty cool, and anybody who goes around wearing a dr. doom (from fantastic four) mask and letting loose with free associate verbal diarrhea, not to mention having the artistic clout to warrant a remix from recluse and todd-cleary-from-wedding-crashers look-a-like thom yorke, is just an all around good guy.

so anyways, to catch people up, nobody knows what he looks like underneath the mask, and a couple of years ago he got a lot of flack because he sent an "impostor" to a photo shoot in his place, and rumors started circulating that he was doing the same for live shows.

now he's back with a new album, which is i dunno like every other doom album, but this interview raises a bunch of interesting questions. peep excerpt:

HipHopDX: So just to get it out of the way, can you address the recent scandal where you were allegedly sending an impostor to perform in your mask at DOOM concerts?
DOOM: [Laughs] Alright. Here's how I look at it, because the wording in there is kinda funny. "Impostor." Impostor would imply that the character. I liken it to this: I'm a director as well as a writer. I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There's no impostor.

would you go see doom if you knew it wasn't him? i wouldn't go see daft punk if i knew that it wasn't thomas and guy-manuel behind the masks, even though it could not be and i'd never know the difference. maybe that's just me being old fashioned....

MF Doom - Hot Guacamole (feat. MC Paul Barman) prod. Prince Paul

this probably isn't the dopest thing doom ever released, me being a huge fan of his special fingers instrumental series, but having the audacity err... balls to rock over creedance tickles my fancy.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down on the Corner

my computer's now suspiciously working....

good grief-itti

2009-04-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

grafitti sesh (do you spell it out phonetically?) went well today, besides the fact that memories (and batteries) fade in the coldest winter. no seriously, it was really cold and we were in a fuckin tunnel. anyways, i have about 45 minutes of footage that i can edit down. gratis (that's his graf tag) said he wasn't really feeling the biggie song (he'll come around someday though) so i'm left scratching my chin about what song to make this video for. if my computer worked i would make a new one, but that's still up in the air.

i got this really dope, very expensive takashi murakami book for christmas, after of course being turned onto him by kanye. mr. west is funny that way - he'll post about something i've never heard of and i'm like oh shit that's really cool and i totally just bite his style, but when he went and sampled harder better faster stronger i was like what you just heard that song i was bumpin that back in the womb. its funny how being cool and hip and all up on the latest crazes work.

i couldn't resist. i think this might be a parody of heartless, and if it is it's about ten times funnier than it already is. i've already burned a new copy of 808's with the old version replaced with south park's song because frankly i need a giggle break in between all that heartbreak shit.

sexy MF computer

2009-04-12T18:31:00.001-07:00

yep, my main computer is terribly ill. i'm hoping it's something semi-serious but recoverable like strep. i'd even take aids, as long as i can get someone to boot it up one last time so i can retrieve my 120 gb's of music before jumping ship. but my queasy stomach is telling me the black plague.

"main computer?!?!?" all of those embittered by the economy and living in cardboard boxes are probably saying right now.

no music today, but good news on that front. tomorrow i am heading to the town of boston to see my old roommate from ic and get some (hopefully sick) footage of him tagging that i'll edit together for a music video to accompany the biggie post. i know, i'm pumped too.

yeah and this is a sick blog. they must just spend hours upon hours looking for the coolest pictures on the web. it isn't a site i visit everyday, but every week or so i'll log on and scroll through all the crazy shit posted. very jealous of the name too damn!

NEW MUSIC - Hypnotize Remix!!

2009-04-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

i swear its not a comparison lol now that kanye's eating humble pie somebody's got to step up to the buffet line

two days without a post; what seems like years since i brought the realness...

and all i've got is some weird outer space shit. as my brother would say, it's avant grad. let it simmer for a lil while though you'll see. smoke some with ya doggs it's the new dark side of the moon

as you can see i'm dabbling more and more in the wonders ableton has to offer. still making all of the beats in reason though. you should have seen the ghetto set-up i was using to get the carl sagan clip haha

let's go for two new music posts a week (that might be a little ambitious though) and culture crap the rest of the time. on three break!

The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize (Hear Mars Pregnant Robots Remix)

the sample:

The Soul Children - I'll Be The Other Woman

this is a test

2009-04-08T19:06:00.001-07:00

which is more inappropriate?

a. The Beatles - Why don't we do it in the road?

b. Slick Rick - Adults Only

bonus question, which is more immature?

biggie x aphex twin x thom yorke's remix of gazillion ear x dj premier coming soon

some shit to chew on, not literally

2009-04-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

firstly, my sincere apologizes for yesterday's post. from the picture to the mp3, it really just wasn't up to snuff, and this blog's standards committee should have never let that one slip between the five hole.

so since i'm working on new music currently (that's right, something i actually like, since in the last month i've abandoned work on another love lockdown remix and a remix of boom boom pow, which is a great acapella and a pretty shitty song), i'm going to try something different out. i want to try to stay away from just posting whatever music is brand new; every other music blog on the planet does that and it's a little too much like whoring yourself out for site traffic for my tastes.

2000F & J Kamata - You Don't Know What Love Is

this is fairly new, and like everyone else on the internet i owe diplo credit for putting me onto this. it sounds like a hybrid between southern hip hop, a cheap horror movie soundtrack, what's love got to do with it and anything by zapp & roger. but good lord what a terrible name.

The Notorious B.I.G. - I Got a Story to Tell

there are so many totally tubular (tmnt!) songs on life after death it would be pretty hard to play favorites, but this has got to one of them. in the history of music, what other song tells the exact same story twice, in a row, and you still have to listen to it the second time?

"musta been rained out or something" lol

Thomas Bangalter - Club Soda

this has to be the ultimate french touch track. the first song i'm going to play when i have my first real dj gig (yo kids doesn't count) is this with the in da club acapella over it. while i haven't actually tested it out yet, i mean, come on. you'd dance.

oh yeah, new sweatshirt, check it ouuuttt. (not in these colors)

NEW MUSIC - What's For Dinner, What's Your Name

2009-04-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: THIS SONG IS NOW CLASSIFIED UNDER PRETTY TERRIBLE

not too much to say today.

what do you think about kid cudi's new song? can a song be sampled while it's still no. 1 on the billboard hot 100? even if it's some exclusive outtake that kanye managed to get his hands on? when he came out with stronger i was thinking to myself hmmmm.... discovery's not even 10 years old.

shame on me for not thinking of it first i guess. can't really see it being as big as day'n'nite though. even with gaga behind it (or underneath it i suppose).

this one's a little uninspired can you tell? the acapella had to be slowed down and it just went on forever and i'm too sick to really sit down and work with it.

so from now on all the posts with new music from me will be clearly labeled as such. that way i get a couple of days to either put something new together or at least put a little bit of effort besides warping the vocals to match the track and sequencing my loop in reason. the bad news (if that wasn't bad enough already) is that you'll have to listen to me sitting in my ivory tower, dieting and and taking it out on the music industry. i didn't really want to have this be a critical blog, so maybe it will just raise thought provoking questions you can chew on throughout your day. you've been warned.

T.I. - What You Know (Hear Mars What's For Dinner, What's Your Name Remix)

Kid Cudi, KanYe, Common & A-Trak - Poke Her Face (har har har what a pun)

samples Lady GaGa - You Know The Damn Song

12 followers "they love me they really love me!" what is that from???

a hydroplane

2009-04-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

blogging is a full-time gig! kanye tell me your secret!

got a reply yesterday to one of my numerous groveling emails trying to build interest in my blog asking for more originals, which got me thinking about what this blog is going to be about.

i've already been trying to think ahead about what the hell i'm going to do when i run out of old songs to fuck around with. right now i'm spending about an hour and a half a day trying to get from the really basic music loop on reason to the finished post, and because of that i haven't been working on any new stuff. which means that eventually (i have around 150 music loops on my computer, but i would only consider utilizing 20 or 30 more in actual posts) i'm going to have to quit my job and work full-time on a blog that currently has 8 followers (a VERY loyal 8, mind you).

so something tells me that i'm going to hit the bottom of this 'post-once-every-24-hours' energy drink i'm currently pounding down, or at least get very sick to my stomach (true story, i'm not drinking any rockstars again for a while). do i plow forward for another month or two, going out with a bang, or start slowing my posts down to once every couple of days and just sort of slowly decompose?

Dr. Dre - Forgot About Dre (feat. Eminem) (Hear Mars Hydroplane Remix)

i mean james dean couldn't escape the allure of dying young, leavin a good lookin corpse

edit: although i'll never run out of great pics

warblebird

2009-04-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

i've sent this one around to a couple people. warblebird is the first one i've posted in a while that doesn't feature any samples - everything was built in reason with a midi keyboard.

when i first made it i thought it would sound smokin in some crazy car commercial. now i realize it sounds better under three stacks and daddy fat sacks.

yeah yeah yeah the chorus kinda sounds off when there's a melody playing. the acapella needed to be warped to bejesus to get it to fit right and when i was done i just didn't have the energy to try to learn how to pitch-adjust.

b.o.b is 153 bpm wtf!!!! also the original song sounds super dope at 120. because there's no sample i will post that for your listening enjoyment.

6 followers i feel like perez! although i'm not sure who olddogg is (i have a guess). in any case, welcome.

Outkast - B.O.B. (Hear Mars Warblebird Remix)

Outkast - B.O.B. (Not Quite Chopped and Screwed But...)

the lazy sample post is coming. soon. ish. i promise.

UPDATE: my gf informed me that not everyone might know what bpm is. also she reminded me to remind you that she took the original pic posted. bpm of course stands for boogers penis man-gina.

the tide changer

2009-04-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

i was going to do a post about really lazy sampling that in some cases can be completely justified, but as you can see i didn't.

"the tide changer" is one of the ones i always show to people i don't think are going to be that into my fresh beats. on the other hand, it was really a bitch to find a vocal track to fit over this. among the ones i was excited for but just didn't work out were busta's touch it and biggie's hypnotize. here, bussa bus's vocal delivery is pretty constrained within the "bar" structure music follows, so obviously it sounds pretty good, although if anyone with remixing knowledge is reading this they probably know i kind of took the easy way out.

this is also the second song i've put together partially using ableton, i.e. making the beat in reason and then putting everything together using ableton live so i can take advantage of their orgasmic wharping function.

oh yeah and when i originally made the beat i didn't label what sample it was, and i had to skim through 271 songs before i found it. you're welcome to all those people who don't listen to the samples anyways.

oh yeah, that lazy post is forthcoming.

Busta Rhymes - Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See (Hear Mars Tide Changer Remix)

the sample (from the previously championed Stax/Volt single collection):

The Soul Children - I'll Understand

also, check my boy steven's blog, where he posts pictures with hidden vags in them. two thumbs up in my book.

tortoise shell

2009-04-02T14:54:00.001-07:00

hip hop instrumentals kind of blow. by themselves i mean. they're boring; they do the same thing over and over again; more often than not they're really uninteresting.

which is why it's funny that for the last two decades, rap (or rap seasoned) songs are really the only songs where an instrumental version is made available on the single. are there really that many asher roths out there looking for the next 8 mile battle?

there are exceptions. dr. dre's 2001 album comes in an instrumental only format, and the good doctor rocks your socks off without "the aftermath staff, trust me, doggy dogg, diggy doctor plus me."

in a really roundabout way, i realized that i don't want to post any more hip hop tracks if they're just going to be instrumental. i'm too lazy to vary them up enough to make them interesting on their own, and as you can see here, throwing whatever acapella over it sounds pretty dope.

Jay-Z - Dirt Off Your Shoulder (Hear Mars Tortoise Shell Remix)

the sample is from an invaluable resource, The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1975. if you're into that old soul shit you really have to get yourself up on this monstrosity.

J.J. Barnes - Got to Get Rid of You

some crazy echo shit

2009-04-01T19:25:00.001-07:00

what i've posted so far has all been electronic/house, and that's really not being fair to my musical background because long before i was ripping off justice and daft punk i was ripping off dr. dre and rza and preemo. i won't go into too many details about my wiggerish ways, but i will concede that at one point i rocked rocawear jeans cuz my knots so thick.

i still do the occasional hip hop track, and of all the dre knock-offs i've done, this one is the bees knees. also, this is probably the only dr. dre rip off in the universe that samples a pink floyd song. scott storch, i triple dog dare you.

Hear Mars - Look What I Did With Echoes

aaaaaand....

Pink Floyd - Echoes (i have to pander to my hippie following because without them, well quite frankly it would just be my girlfriend)

ALSO: currently flossin FOUR followers what what be more constructive with your feedback

ginseng mixes

2009-03-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

this is an example of what happens when you turn something really shitty into something that's a little less shitty, and then you make an alternative mix that's probably on the same level of shittyness as the little less shitty one.

a couple of months ago, i was looking through the hundreds of loops i've made in reason. while what i had was shit, i accidently doubled the song's tempo. two sounds, the bass and a blipping synth run, actually sounded really good at that speed. i put them into a new reason rack and started over. that song became ginseng extract.

when i was done with that, i decided i really didn't like a lot of it, and i started almost over from scratch again. what i did was ginseng tripping mix.

neither of this are exactly what i was going for. which one do you like better?

first mix:

Hear Mars - Ginseng Extract

alternative mix:

Hear Mars - Ginseng (Tripping Mix)

and just for shits and giggles here is what i originally started out with. the first part is the whole loop i had done, then i isolated the bass and synth tracks at their original speed.

i actually have this saved under the name Great Scott. office reference, anyone?

the washboard

2009-03-29T09:24:00.001-07:00

this is a track i did maybe a year and a half ago. somebody told me it reminded them of crydamoure. guy-man, check out the filter! hit me up!!!

this time i remembered the sample. got it from ultimate breaks and beats vol. 1. sometimes when i'm lookin for tracks to load into recycle i skip the really well-known samples, but i bet nobody thought to flip indiscreet like this.

the sample:

D.C. LaRue - Indiscreet

what i did with it:

Hear Mars - The Washboard

i'm not lovin you lovin you

2009-03-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

i heard this sounded flat. actually it was my first kanye remix, contrary to be posted second. no sample here, other than the obvious. i also spent a lot more time on this one than the porn star edit. what's the verdict?

KanYe West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Clubbin Mix)

updates:

trying to learn abelton since i dled the latest cracked version. reason is cool, but if i'm going to be sporting a robot mask rocking out on top of a giant light pyramid in five years time i've gotta upgrade.

elise's pics

don't front on phil!

2009-03-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

i forgot to mention that the porn star mix samples "if leaving me is easy" by the one and only phil collins. growing up watching south park psychologically trained me to associate phil with the taste of burb-up in the back of my throat, but after finally giving in the reverby awesomeness of the drums at the end of "in the air tonight", i did give the album a fair chance. kanye was right, again (eyes roll).

the sample

Phil Collins - If Leaving Me Is Easy

and dessert

Phil Collins - This Must Be Love

both off FACE VALUE

EDIT: by burb-up i of course mean burp-up and not surburban-up

love lockdown porn star mix

2009-03-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

i always thought it'd be cool when i started a blog that the first post wouldn't acknowledge anything about it being the first post, it would just open in medias res

KanYe West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Porn Star Edit)